See, the thing was, he did, didn’t he? No one saw that. I wasn’t even sure those closest to him saw that because he was really convincing at being flip and outlandish. But he had a serious side. He was someone who had worked to increase his family’s wealth—despite how much of it he blew with his ostentatious lifestyle. He had endured a hard life that had given him discipline. Though he typically chose not to use it, it was there should he want to.
“He does,” I told Raven. “I think his crazy side is the dominant one, but he does have another side as well.”
“You know what I like about that?” she asked, looking wistful, a little dreamy, having moon eyes for the idea of me with a happily ever after like she had.
“What?”
“That there is no completing the other person. Neither of you are lacking. You have it all. But you have personalities that commingle nicely. I like that.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” I said, reaching for my blanket again, pulling it up to my chin like a little kid.
“It does matter,” Raven countered, shaking her head. “And I am going to need some more details.”
“Like what?”
“Like how it ended. Like what has been going on in your head since you got back here.”
“I finally felt confident that he had strong feelings for me,” I told her, unable to use that word. You know the one. The one that would hurt too much to admit. “Then I packed and left while he slept.”
“No note?”
“No note. The mystery is what hurts the most when you get ghosted,” I reminded her. We’d been over it many times in the past, but she was retired, rusty.
“Do you feel guilty?”
“We don’t do guilt in our business.”
“Wasp,” she said, shaking her head. “Come on. We’re not talking about the countless other assholes. We’re talking about this particular asshole. Do you feel guilty for knowingly hurting him?”
“Yes,” I admitted, the taste of that word bitter on my tongue.
“Okay and now for the important one,” Raven said, raising a brow at me. “Did you love him? I know you said feelings. And feelings can be a lot of things. But did you love him?”
“I think I was starting to,” I admitted, feeling a sting at the backs of my eye, blinking it away. I didn’t cry. That wasn’t my thing.
“Shit,” Raven said, shaking her head.
“Shit?” I repeated, feeling my lips curving up—my first genuine smile in days. Raven had never been one to use swear words even before children. Now it was an even more strict rule for her.
“Yeah, that about covers it, don’t you think? Shit. Or ‘What an utter clusterfuck” works too,” she added. “Well, what now?”
“What do you mean what now? There is no what now. I drag myself out of this bed when I get to that point. And then I get back on the road. I get back to my life.”
“Running more cons.”
“Yes, seeing as that is what I do for a living. What you used to do for a living,” I added, actually sensing judgment in her face, despite all the years she had done the exact same thing.
“Look, I don’t think what we did was wrong, per se. I just have some distance from it all now, and I can’t figure out why the hell it felt like such a passion of ours for all those years.”
“We did it for all womankind. For all of our fellow women who got screwed over by shitty men. They deserved a chance to get some closure. We provided that. Or we helped them prove their spouses were cheating so they could get the proper alimony. No, wait,” I said, holding up a hand when she went to speak. “Let me throw a hypothetical at you, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, nodding.
“Imagine a year from now, you start to suspect Roman is screwing around behind your back. I know, I know. He’s perfect. But they all are, aren’t they? Until they’re not. So suspend your disbelief. Imagine sitting up in bed at night while he sleeps like a baby as you wrestle with the knowledge that those hands he puts on you are the same ones he had on another woman just hours before. Sit with that a minute. Feel how that might feel.”
“Wasp—”
“Now imagine you finally got the nerve to tell him you were done, that you want out, that he could have his other women, but not you at the same time. And you take the kids and you go. And you find out that he canceled your cards. And he removed your access from accounts. And you are forced to get several low-paying jobs just to keep your kids in a shitty motel room because you can’t afford anything else, and all you have left goes to a lawyer to try to get him to pay the alimony he owes you since he invalidated the prenup for cheating on you.”